In this auteurist era of television, the likability question has become a litmus test for enlightened viewing. Wanting protagonists to be likable signals a lack of sophistication. Making protagonists “difficult” is a sign of authenticity.
I’m fine with that, as far as it goes. But Sophia Amoruso, the heroine of the new Netflix series “Girlboss, ” demonstrates that the question isn’t that simple.
The show, whose 13 episodes will be available Friday, is based on the memoir “#GIRLBOSS” by the real-life Sophia Amoruso, a digital entrepreneur who founded the fashion e-commerce site Nasty Gal. The show was created and partly written by Kay Cannon, screenwriter of the “Pitch Perfect” movies.
The Rise And Fall Of The Girlboss — And Why Her Fall Is A Good Thing
The fictional Sophia — each episode begins with a note that the show is a “real loose” version of Ms. Amoruso’s story — is at the far end of the TV scale of difficulty. And she’s all the more realistic for that. If you don’t know a woman whom you love despite her characteristic anger, obsessiveness, insensitivity and refusal to listen to others, you may dismiss Sophia as a caricature. If you do, one moment after another in “Girlboss” will ring surprisingly true.
But truth doesn’t necessarily equal drama, or in this case half-hour inspirational dramedy. It’s fine that the Sophia of “Girlboss” isn’t likable. The problem is that she isn’t particularly interesting.
It’s a big problem, because for the show to work, we need to see what the other characters — like Sophia’s best friend, Annie (Ellie Reed), and her maybe-boyfriend, Shane (Johnny Simmons) — see in her. Neither Ms. Cannon nor Britt Robertson, who plays Sophia, is able to make it apparent.
Sophia Amoruso Responds To 'girlboss' Cancellation
Ms. Cannon’s strategy appears to be to foreground Sophia’s vulnerability and self-hatred — after episodes of boorishness or violent anger, she’s liable to loudly ask herself why she’s such a jerk. It’s another realistic touch, but it doesn’t make us care any more about her. Ms. Robertson convincingly portrays Sophia’s defensiveness and irritating energy, but there’s a pinched, limited quality to her performance. Sophia needs charisma, and Ms. Robertson hasn’t found it.
The bigger issue may be the disconnect between the part of “Girlboss” that wants to be a character study and the part that needs to be a conventionally entertaining series. The roots of Sophia’s personality are addressed briefly, in vague and heavily clichéd terms (blame the parents). Otherwise her thorniness sits uncomfortably inside a stylized comedy that’s equal parts oddball and striving for the outrageous.
(The tech-business side of the story, in which a series of epiphanies takes Sophia from unemployed boho to eBay seller to e-commerce mogul, feels about as savvy as the copy of “Starting an eBay Business for Dummies” that Sophia shoplifts.)
Review: In Netflix's 'girlboss,' A Heroine Who's A Tough Sell
As she demonstrated in “Pitch Perfect, ” Ms. Cannon can write a funny line and sketch in an appealing character, and a number of performers benefit from this in small, spiky roles: Jim Rash as a vintage-clothing store owner, Norm MacDonald as a security guard, Melanie Lynskey as an eBay rival, Louise Fletcher as a curmudgeonly neighbor. They’re all likable, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
A version of this article appears in print on , Section C, Page 16 of the New York edition with the headline: Likable’s O.K., but Nasty’s Chic. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | SubscribeTwitter icon A stylized bird with an open mouth, tweeting. Twitter LinkedIn icon The word in. LinkedIn Fliboard icon A stylized letter F. Flipboard Facebook Icon The letter F. Facebook Email icon An envelope. It indicates the ability to send an email. Email Link icon An image of a chain link. It symobilizes a website link url. Copy Link
It began as a slow crumbling. In December, Steph Korey stepped down as CEO of cult-favorite luggage brand Away (she would go on to step back in a month later and resign a second time in July). In February, Tyler Hanley resigned as CEO from the millennial activewear company she founded, Outdoor Voices.
Girl Boss Facebook
In the midst of it all, Sophia Amoruso — the pioneer of the term girlboss — resigned on June 22 from the #GirlBoss media platform she had created years earlier. But while the girlboss has met a swift and public downfall, that's actually a good thing — and it's not the end of the female leader. Instead, it's the beginning of a new space for more inclusive leaders to shine without being defined by gender.
The female founder trying to crack the glass ceiling isn't a new concept, but 2014 was the year she got a new name.
That year, Sophia Amoruso wrote the now-famous memoir #GirlBoss, laying the foundation for the #GirlBoss media platform she launched three years later. At the time, 30-year-old Amoruso was CEO of online fashion retailer Nasty Gal (Nasty Gal would go on to file for bankruptcy in 2016).
Girl Boss Hd Wallpaper Facebook Cover Photo
Suddenly, women everywhere were using the term as it came to encompass more than the definition of a female CEO and instead embodied the overall attitude of women — particularly young ones — being able to do anything. The girlboss Instagram account has 1.6 million followers, and to date, the term has been hashtagged more than 20.2 million times. Celebrities from Miranda Kerr to Gwyneth Paltrow have self-identified as a girlboss.
Other monikers like #bossbabe, SHE-E-O, and the boss bitch soon started cropping up, all reincarnations of the same ideal: the young, ambitious woman who can have it all while lifting up other women on her path to success.
The girlboss had hustle. She was an entrepreneur or a leader in her industry. In many iterations, she was a millennial. And she often had that effortless, it-like quality of knowing what she wants — and of relying on being cool without seeming to care that she's cool.
Leandra Medine started Man Repeller in 2010 as a personal fashion blog with cheeky takes on how women can dress for themselves, not for men. The I don't care what other people think of me attitude struck a chord with cool girls, transforming the brand into the lifestyle site it is today.
Man Repeller features articles on Reformation clothes, which was dubbed the label for cool girls everywhere and seen on celebrities such as Karlie Kloss and Kendall Jenner. The secret to Reformation founder Yael Aflalo's success, wrote Emilia Petrarca for W Magazine, is that she has taken her personal Los Angeles cool-girl style ... and translated it for the masses.
Similarly, Jen Gotch, who spent time rubbing elbows with Instagram cool girls, per Buzzfeed's Stephanie McNeal, founded Band.O and served as its muse. She built the brand on an upbeat mission that fused self-care with female empowerment, a combination she has personal experience with due to a history of anxiety and bipolar 2 disorder.
Meanwhile, Christene Barberich's Refinery29 played to the cool girl's ambitions and political savviness with series like Money Diaries and 2020 election. And that reader is the same girl likely to be a member of The Wing, co-founded by Audrey Gelman, a cool girl whose wedding was featured on Vogue.com and who made an appearance on the hit HBO show Girls.
These platforms created a needed space for the stylish and career-oriented woman, becoming successful empires along the way. The Wing opened in 2016 with a 13, 000-person wait list and a 20, 000-follower Instagram presence. Today, the company is estimated to be worth $200 million. Within three years of its founding, Reformation had become an e-commerce business; in 2019, it projected yearly sales to exceed $150 million. And in 2019, Vice acquired Refinery29 in a $400 million deal.
But in her quest to tout gender inclusivity, the girlboss fell short in another critical form of inclusivity: diversity. As Leigh Stein for Medium wrote in a takedown of the girlboss, Racial inequity was never really on her radar. That was someone else's problem to solve.
By ingraining her personal identity into the brand's identity, the girlboss left no room for the cool girl to be anything but white and wealthy. Her downfall comes as corporate America faces a reckoning.
Since the peak of the Black Lives Matter protests in June, employees of color have revealed the very white core of these companies.
Two former employees told CNN Business' Kerry Flynn that Barberich would reject photos of Black or plus-sized models for Refinery29, deeming them off-brand. Barberich acknowledged to CNN the brand's shortcomings came at the detriment of Black women and women of color in particular.
Gotch, too, took to Instagram (her account has since been deleted) to respond to employee allegations of racism at Ban.Do after a Buzzfeed investigation revealed a racist, mean girls environment at the company. I am guilty and not only am I guilty, I have been so ignorant and so insulated by the ease and comfort of my white privilege... she wrote.
A New York Times expose from March on The Wing revealed low pay, poor treatment, and racism at the company. When these criticisms resurfaced in June, Gelman resigned, saying in an email to staff that stepping down was the best way to bring The Wing along into a long overdue era of change.
It's a
Posting Komentar untuk "Girlboss Facebook"